Louisiana lawmakers are holding the first hearing of a committee tasked with exploring legalizing recreational marijuana. You can watch it here: legis.la.gov/legis/video.as… #lalege #lagov
We're hearing testimony warning legalization will lead to a bunch of negative effects, like increased traffic fatalities, etc. Here's some fact-checking I did on this earlier this year theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/ne… #lalege #lagov
The Louisiana Sheriffs Association is now picking out some purported negative effects of legalization in testimony to the committee. #lalege #lagov
One of the sheriffs arguments is that they took an oath to uphold federal law, and that marijuana is federally illegal. Rep. Nelson points out that sheriffs officers aren't arresting people who get medical marijuana here, even though that's still federally illegal #lalege #lagov
A narcotics officer from Rapides Parish says "95%" (!!) of the drug busts they do involve marijuana right now. #lalege #lagov
That same officer is now suggesting legalization would cause youth rates to increase, something that is not supported by data in states that have legalized pot. #lalege #lagov
Reminder: 18 other states, two territories and D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana in the U.S. Another 36 states have allowed medical marijuana (including Louisiana). ncsl.org/research/healt… #lalege #lagov
The narcotics officer says pot makes people lazy and "one day we're going to wake up as a society...Everybody is going to be sitting under a shade tree saying, it's all right." #lalege #lagov
The narcotics officer now says he believes alcohol is better for you than marijuana.
Hearing a lot of interesting claims from the sheriffs about all the terrible things that would happen if we legalized marijuana. Hopefully the committee will bring in experts on marijuana legalization to address these claims. #lalege #lagov
I've written a lot about marijuana legalization and am hearing some claims from sheriffs that I've never heard before. One sheriff claims the state's "economic status" is going to go down because pot "addicts" are gonna spend all their money at the dispensary #lalege #lagov
Reminder: The Sheriffs Association, which helped kill marijuana legalization last session, argued it wanted this committee so it could make recommendations for how to craft the policy when it inevitably happens. But all we've heard today is reasons we shouldn't legalize. #Lalege
If you're looking for a good, data-driven look at how legalization has gone in Colorado, you should read this government report from a few years ago: cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/docs/repor… #lalege #lagov
Major BeeBee, the narcotics officer in Rapides, says he thinks if weed was legalized, people would buy legal pot and then put illegal pot into the legal packaging ... #lalege #lagov
BeeBee says he thinks cops would have no option but to arrest someone if they found they had pot in a "cellophane bag" even if pot was legalized, because they couldn't tell if it was acquired legally. Really extraordinarily hard to believe that would be the case #lalege #lagov
Here's a dose of reality from a story I wrote about legalization earlier this year theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/ne… #lalege #lagov 
After the sheriffs association gives a long list of reasons why pot shouldn't be legalized, Rep. Scott McKnight, a BR Republican, reminds them the committee's job is to find out how to address the potential downsides of legalization when it happens, not debating whether it should
Even Rep. Fontenot, a staunch opponent of legalization, reminds the sheriffs that pot will be legalized at some point, and that the job here is to get some real input on how to best craft the law. #Lalege #lagov
"It’s not if. It’s when," Fontenot says. "For me i hope it’s 30 years. But it could be this year.” #lalege #lagov
Rep. Fontenot warned that all the K9 dogs in Louisiana will be "null and void" if we legalize pot because they're trained to sniff out marijuana #lalege #lagov
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